1. Field of the Invention
The invention includes the metal founding process of continuously and semi-continuously shaping liquid metal against a forming surface. More particularly, the invention includes direct chill casting of a billet by applying liquid coolant directly to the billet product.
2. Background Information
Founding includes making objects by introducing molten material into a mold where the material solidifies as heat is removed from the material. Slip or continuous casting may be a process whereby molten metal is solidified by gravity feeding the molten metal through a heat absorbing ring. A starting head, having a base mounted to a hydraulic ram, forms an unattached bottom to the heat absorbing ring. The heat absorbing ring and the starting head comprise the basic elements of a slip mold.
When the molten metal fills the mold and begins to solidify, the starting head may be lowered at a controlled rate. Solidified metal may exit the heat absorbing ring to form a billet. Residing above the billet and within the heat absorbing ring may be a solidified metal shell that serves to stabilize the moving billet between the heat absorbing ring and the starting head. Within the sump of this shell may be replenishing molten metal. As molten metal is passed into the shell sump and through the heat absorbing ring, the billet may grow in length.
A billet (or ingot) may be viewed as an elongated mass of metal that is cast in a standard shape by a billet supplier for convenient storage or shipment. The billet may take on the cylindrical cross sectional shape of the heat absorbing ring and may be made of aluminum or aluminum alloy. Even though the heat absorbing ring may be less than two inches in height, a billet may be twenty feet long and have a diameter from three inches to thirty six inches. Manufacturers further process cylindrical billets by thermomechanically forging, extruding, rolling, scalping, or drawing a billet to produce marketable products such as curtain rods for indoors, engine mounts, aircraft landing gear, sheet metal for ships, and I-beams for buildings.
To better control the heat transfer cooling process of the billet, water may be applied directly to the surface of the solid metal as the solid metal exits the heat absorbing ring. Thus, as the starting head lowers, water jets built into the mold may spray water onto the billet to cool the surface and further solidify the metal. This continuous direct chill (DC) casting process, invented in 1942 by W. T. Ennor (U.S. Pat. No. 2,301,027), produces a fine-grained metal structure with minimum segregation. High production rates may be achieved in the casthouse when multiple DC casting molds are used simultaneously in a mold table.
Although some advancements in this area have been made since 1942, there still exists a need in the industry for a direct chill casting mold system package that produces an optimized metallurgical structure of the cast product with desirable surface finish. In comparison to conventional industry mold system packages, this direct chill casting mold system package should be safer to operate, easier to use and maintain, should maximize the casting productivity, and be less expensive to manufacture and operate.
An embodiment includes a casting mold. The casting mold may include a mold body having a direction surface and a coolant box coupled to the mold body. The casting mold further may include a coolant ring having a regulation surface where the coolant ring may be coupled to the coolant box so as to bring the regulation surface and the direction surface together to form a nozzle. The casting mold further may include a mold starting head.